Sinicising Islam in China: The story of a Mosque

Since 2018, the Chinese Government’s nationwide campaign to ‘Sinicise Islam’ has resulted in architectural changes to hundreds of mosques across the country, as well as mosque destruction in the name of ‘consolidation’. This essay revisits the fate of some high profile mosques, illustrating the ways in which local religious communities need to negotiate and position themselves amid a broader trend to assimilate, or render invisible, religious and ethnic differences that do not conform to Xi’s ethnonationalist vision of Chinese civilisation.